Speeding Up SD Load

Caelric · 05-14-2008, 08:24 PM

I know, I know, it's hard to believe that I am still sticking with SD, what with the lack of support and all. but, I figured I would try and get some support from the other users.

So, here's the problem:

My computer boots pretty quickly, but SD loads relatively slowly. This only happens, though, when I was last using the music player function of SD, so it has to reinitialize the music player (WMP11) and then load my music. Given that I have ~35 gB of music, this slows down SD. I also am mostly only playing one playlist, which has a large number of songs on it.

However, if I was listening to SAT radio last, then SD loads more quickly.

Also, I have noticed that ever since I installed the SAT radio, and am using the "-routexmaudio" switch, it did slow down the SD load time, whether I was using the music player, or the SAT radio player last.

I've already disabled the "reindex music on start" checkbox (or whatever that is). Anyone have any more ideas for speeding up the SD load, or should I just deal with it, or maybe reduce the amount of music I have on my carPC?

I do have a pretty fast HD, 7200 rpm 100 gB laptop HD, and my processor is a 2.15 Core Duo, with 1 gB of memory, so I have a pretty fast carPC.

Any suggestions?

Artificial · 05-15-2008, 06:50 AM

it takes long to load all the music in the player for me too. I now use more playlists, and have at most 300 or so songs in queue. SD loads fairly fast now.

Caelric · 05-15-2008, 06:58 AM

Oh, I figured thats what it was, but I was hoping there was some way to speed it up, without changing the playlist size.

Artificial · 05-15-2008, 09:10 AM

Not that i would know of... It would be great dough.

johnk · 05-15-2008, 05:40 PM

I have over 1200 (all in my queue... I just use Play All), and SD doesn't take that long to load even when I was last in the Music module. If I'm resuming from Standby/Hibernate, it is very quick.

danielkh · 06-09-2008, 08:34 AM

Caelric,
I am pretty sure you are following the streetdeck status thread, but did you catch the post by Kalt mentioning the SD 20 second load time? I'm wondering if that might be your issue here. The way it looks to me is SD should load in 2-4 seconds, then index your music afterward. Even if you were in music before, it shouldn't effect indexing. Just a thought! Here is what Kalt said. The post was deleted but I found a reply with the text in it.....

Kalt: The loading problem is caused by T3devControl.dll. If you open it with notepad and delete its contents the loading problem should be fixed.

parksgm · 06-09-2008, 11:48 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by danielkh

Caelric,
I am pretty sure you are following the streetdeck status thread, but did you catch the post by Kalt mentioning the SD 20 second load time? I'm wondering if that might be your issue here. The way it looks to me is SD should load in 2-4 seconds, then index your music afterward. Even if you were in music before, it shouldn't effect indexing. Just a thought! Here is what Kalt said. The post was deleted but I found a reply with the text in it.....

Kalt: The loading problem is caused by T3devControl.dll. If you open it with notepad and delete its contents the loading problem should be fixed.

For some reason, I can't save the file with notepad once I delete the contents...is there some trick to saving it? Or can I just create an empty text file, name it the same, and then drag it into the folder to replace the original?

Also, is this 2-3 second load real? I've never gotten such a quick load - in my experience, SD will load fairly quickly if the -nodelayload switch is off, but it still takes 30 seconds or so for the program to become fully functional with all graphics, etc. loaded.

Caelric · 06-09-2008, 12:07 PM

Yes, I tried it, it does speed up the load.

As for saving the file, if you have SD loaded, it leaves a tray app (SD Launcher Tray or something like that.) That tray app uses the DLL, so while it is in use, it can be changed/saved/deleted. You have to close the tray app first.

Anyway, like I said, it does speed up the load somewhat, but I decided to splurge on my carPC and treat it to a new drive, a 120 gB SATA II Solid State Drive Hopefully that should speed things up even more...

danielkh · 06-09-2008, 01:41 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by parksgm

For some reason, I can't save the file with notepad once I delete the contents...is there some trick to saving it? Or can I just create an empty text file, name it the same, and then drag it into the folder to replace the original?

Also, is this 2-3 second load real? I've never gotten such a quick load - in my experience, SD will load fairly quickly if the -nodelayload switch is off, but it still takes 30 seconds or so for the program to become fully functional with all graphics, etc. loaded.

5 seconds is slow to average on a J7F5 motherboard (C7/128mb video/1gb ram) and 120gb seagate 5400 rpm drive. Load Streetdeck in Debug mode. If it stalls trying to load infill stuff, then you have a problem. I didn't use Kalt's fix. I found that if you load mappoint full before loading streetdeck, you avoid the issue.

3 seconds is average on the new system (see specs). That is to full functionality.

parksgm · 06-09-2008, 03:55 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Caelric

Yes, I tried it, it does speed up the load.

As for saving the file, if you have SD loaded, it leaves a tray app (SD Launcher Tray or something like that.) That tray app uses the DLL, so while it is in use, it can be changed/saved/deleted. You have to close the tray app first.

Thanks for the info...will do that shortly.

Quote:

Anyway, like I said, it does speed up the load somewhat, but I decided to splurge on my carPC and treat it to a new drive, a 120 gB SATA II Solid State Drive Hopefully that should speed things up even more...

Geez...$650? That is a splurge! Should work well for you though...good luck.

customaudioman · 06-11-2008, 09:36 AM

when I go to program files/streetdect that file is not even in the folder. Can i just put a blank text named T3devControl.dll in that file to speed things up on my system? Also mine seems to work without this text file, thats werid.

danielkh · 06-11-2008, 10:00 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by customaudioman

when I go to program files/streetdect that file is not even in the folder. Can i just put a blank text named T3devControl.dll in that file to speed things up on my system? Also mine seems to work without this text file, thats werid.

If the file didn't load, you shouldn't have a startup issue. What kind of boot time are you having from the time SD start to finish? If it is long, go to start, programs, streetdeck, tools, and start streetdeck debug mode. It will list each task as it loads. Might show the hangup.

danielkh · 06-11-2008, 10:14 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by parksgm

Thanks for the info...will do that shortly.

Geez...$650? That is a splurge! Should work well for you though...good luck.

That's probably going to be a great drive, but for a budget, the hybrid readydrive 160gb seagate runs about $130 right now. Finding it doesn't spin up a lot once programs are running. The 256mb flash seems to be enough for normal operation (front end running with nav and/or music).

If you don't have the budget for the "perfect" harddrive, this is a good second choice.

Caelric · 06-11-2008, 10:21 AM

Well, actually, a "perfect" hard drive would be one of the MTron SSD's, which are even faster, as they use a different type of solid state memory. On the other hand, the 64 gB version of an MTron drive is over $2000.....

danielkh · 06-11-2008, 10:27 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Caelric

Well, actually, a "perfect" hard drive would be one of the MTron SSD's, which are even faster, as they use a different type of solid state memory. On the other hand, the 64 gB version of an MTron drive is over $2000.....

Ok, that's just obscene. lol

Perfect meaning no moving parts and completely safe in a moving mobile environment.